Rock What You've Got: Secrets to Loving Your Inner and Outer Beauty from Someone Who's Been There and Back [Hardcover]

Katherine Schwarzenegger (Author)

Book Description

Release date: September 14, 2010

A hip, empowering, get-real guide to loving the body you’re in.

For young women today, developing a healthy body image can be a challenge. Yet Katherine Schwarzenegger has done just that. She has been there . . . and back, and has come not only to accept but to love her curvy, powerful, smart, sexy, and happy self. She wants to help other girls do the same—recognize their own beauty, both inside and out.

An estimated 8 million Americans have an eating disorder. Seven million of those are young women, and more and more of them are girls. Girls are increasingly growing dissatisfied with their bodies, trying to change them and fit into some image or mold of perfection that is impossible to achieve.

Where are they getting this from?

The answer is clear: their moms, sisters, friends, frenemies, television, movies, magazines, and every other media outlet imaginable.

When you open a magazine or watch a movie, what kind of girls do you see?

Skinny ones!

Impossibly perfect girls with immaculate bodies.

Everywhere they look, girls are inundated with carefully airbrushed, highly inaccurate images of the female body. It’s no wonder they feel something’s wrong with them!

In this down-to-earth, reassuring, and fun book, Katherine calls for a new way of seeing what is beautiful. Packed with informative facts, moving personal anecdotes from Katherine’s life, and the voices of other Rock What You’ve Got women, her book celebrates the female form, whatever the size, and inspires girls to ROCK WHAT YOU’VE GOT!

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

One would be forgiven for assuming that the daughter of actor, bodybuilder, and California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and journalist Maria Shriver has led a rarified and privileged life, free of strife about issues typically associated with adolescence, like body image, sexuality, and self esteem. But Schwarzenegger, currently an undergraduate at USC, uses her platform to share her experiences in a debut that rides the line between self-help and memoir. Her goal is to mine her own journey in order to empower women, and she wisely discusses eating disorders, birth control, and other hot-button issues in a direct, candid tone complimented by statistics, expert opinion, history, and insight from other women who have struggled with these concerns. "For Moms Only" boxes underscore the important positive role that mothers need to play and offer tips on helping daughters achieve confidence and a positive self- image. Despite the name on the spine, this is girl power from one (relatively) normal young woman to another.
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About the Author

Katherine Schwarzenegger is a twenty-year-old junior at USC. This is her first book.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Voice; First Edition edition (September 14, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1401341438
• ISBN-13: 978-1401341435
• Product Dimensions: 5.9 x 0.8 x 8.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #656,286 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

129 of 146 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars Schizophrenic, mixed message defeats whole purpose September 28, 2010

By Charismatic Creature

Format:Hardcover

Katharine Schwartzenegger is (duh) the daughter of Maria Shriver and The Gubernator (Arnold Swartzenegger), and it's hard to believe this would have been published otherwise. I picked this up thinking it might make a good book for a friend's teenage daughter -- the title and blurb suggest it's about sensible eating and loving your natural curves.

The book jacket photos show the young author, who is attractive and normally proportioned, though not the "skinny minny" Hollywood type. I expected the tone of the book to be breezy and informal, and geared to young girls ages 12-18.

Boy, what a puff piece. For starters, this feels not only ghost-written but committee-written. It doesn't have the integrity of a piece written by a real flesh-and-blood human being. Katharine seems to have had some struggles with normal puberty and development in some chapters, but in others not so much. In some, her family is warm and supportive. In others, her dad is fanatically throwing out junk food, and harshly interrogating her about what she eats.

It goes on and gets worse. Almost every piece of sensible advice given out is then contraindicated by ANOTHER confusing annecdote. Accept your natural body...but don't eat too much!

Don't obsess, don't compare -- but don't get fat either. Eat the pizza (but only one piece!) Don't weigh yourself, but don't gain weight either. Clearly, the author still has a LOT of issues about having a curvy body in the Hollywood/LA milieu where size zero rules all.

I was a little alarmed at the section on birth control. Katharine started her period at 14, then quickly became sexually active and on the pill. She recommends starting birth control even before you are sexually active, advice I imagine some parents would not be too fond of. The pill makes her gain some weight -- another thing that is normal, and should be accepted, but she feels like "she's in a fat suit", so she discontinues it, and "uses some other form of effective birth control". What??? Boy, what a COP OUT. That's advice for girls that is next to worthless. And what if your parents aren't celebs, who are cool with you having sex in 10th grade, no matter if you "talk to them about it"? She gives no options.

Frankly, I do NOT think Ms. Schwartzenegger has "come to terms" or is at piece with her moderately full-figured body (though I agree she is fine as she is) and no talk about the OLD discontinued Dove "natural body" ads will convince me of it. Would a girl of 12 or 14 even REMEMBER those ads from several seasons back? (BTW: Dove discontinued the ads because they provoked so many hateful comments from MEN and from health care professionals, who wrongly supposed they were "encouraging obesity".) I'm not sure how old she is, but even your early 20s can be a long way off emotionally from your early teens. (Yes, human beings forget stuff THAT FAST.)

The only way to talk about healthy bodies and acceptance of your natural body is to accept that SOME BODIES are naturally fat, just as others are naturally medium (like Ms. Schwartzenegger's) and others are naturally skinny. You can't accept the last two, but turn around and say the first type is NOT natural or acceptable. You can't encourage acceptance, and then go hating on the enjoyment of food. And exercise can be as much an obession as dieting.

Conclusion: I can't recommend this for young girls of any age. It feels manufactured and "fake", and the advice ranges from sincere to sanctimonious to conflicted to outright incorrect.

18 of 25 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Invaluable for teenage girls September 17, 2010

By Robin Landry TOP 500 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

I wish there had been a book like this around when I was a teenage girl, but it's here now and as someone who's long past those awful, insecure years, I still found some nuggets of truth in Katherine's wonderful new book. It's one thing for your mom to tell you that you're beautiful, and you're very lucky if she does, but it's even better when you hear it from a girl you would perceive as having it all. Famous and successful parents, beauty(yes, Katherine is a gorgeous girl) money and fame, didn't prevent from feeling like she was fat, ugly and stupid.

Chapter by chapter, with asides from real girls, Katherine takes us through the pitfalls of being a teenage girl. She covers everything from food and exercise, to boys and birth-control. This would be a great book to open a dialogue with daughters, or to just give young girls to let them see that they're not alone in how they feel.

I'm going to recommend this book for every mother I know of a teenage girl. I am so thankful that Katherine wrote it. What a wise and brave young girl she is for sharing her own insecurities. Countless young girls can be helped through what is probably the most insecure times of their lives with this book. It would be even better if mothers read this book first just because we tend to forget those years when we felt like we were the only ones who were imperfect.

Rock What You've Got is especially valuable today because of all the media we have hitting us 24/7 saying that unless we look as wonderful as the air-brushed models around us, we'll never be happy. Katherine sites statistics of how many young girls get breast implants as graduation presents. She talks how actresses look great for certain roles because it's their job to look great and they might work at it for months before they hit the big screen making us all think that these women look like this every day. Katherine stresses that it's not our job to look great 24/7. It's better to work on your own unique set of talents and skills and to put less emphasis on how you look. A special kudos to Katherine's parents who've done such a great job of raising this wonderful girl.

This book might seem to be just more fluff, but I believe it can change and maybe even save the lives of our precious teenage girls.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars I was pleasantly surprised. August 23, 2011

By Maria Beadnell

Format:Hardcover

I ordered this book long before the Scandal, but out of curiosity: The daughter of 2 of the most physically beautiful people in the western world, and wealthy--she could buy beauty if she wanted. What in the world would she have to say that would be interesting?

First of all, I loved that she did not pretend, as do some celeb relatives, that she had a normal life. She is aware that having a nanny and the Terminator for dad and American political royalty mom does set her apart. Phew! Refreshing. Now, even with all those advantages, she still suffered from the normal teen self-doubt, and the misogynist media images? Amazing. And wonderful that she tackles those issues, if not head-on, at least with thought and introspection.

A controversial part of the book is where Ms. Schwarzenegger says she learned how to use birth control early, before she had a partner. And I say GOOD FOR HER. Get to know your body and take responsibility for having an adult body, yourself, don't do it just for That Guy. [BTW I am 50ish, so let's not go speculating I'm young and wild. I'm old and wise.]

She can't make sense of conflicting societal messages: love your body and don't weigh yourself, BUT watch what you eat. But she admits these conflicting messages are there and does give the message to love who you are. As we used to say in the 70s, be yourself, but be your BEST self. I'm not convinced she completely is at ease with her slightly larger than Hollywood body, but I don't expect that of a woman in her early 20s. She's on her way and she's bringing some of us with her, which is great.

The writing is fluffier than I would expect of someone of her age and education but I will attribute that at least in part to the expected audience: girls in mid-teens. Would this have been published had it been written by Katherine Smith? Certainly not. But I am ok with that, because there simply aren't enough books out there saying--even in a flawed way--It's OK To Be You. If it took a fancy last name to get it published and it takes a fancy last name to get people to read it, then I am glad for the fancy last name.